The US and its allies can deter China from invading Taiwan so long as they retain military superiority, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley said.
Voice of America quoted Milley as telling the National Press Club in Washington on Friday that Beijing can be dissuaded from launching military action against Taiwan as long as the US and its allies are able to maintain their military advantage over China.
“The faster we move out, the faster we can retain military superiority, then I believe the theory of the case is we are more likely than not to deter war from happening, and if war does happen, we will prevail,” Milley said.
Photo: Screenshot from C-SPAN’s livestream
Voice of America also quoted Milley as saying that there is no indication that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has decided to attack Taiwan by 2027.
That gives the US and other countries time to show Xi that the use of force would be a bad idea, he was quoted as saying.
“You want to make sure that every single day, President Xi wakes up and says: ‘Today is not that day,’ and that that decision never comes,” he said.
Milley also addressed criticism over the approach the US takes on Taiwan and China, reiterating that the US and its allies have the capacity to support Ukraine and Taiwan.
“It’s not ... a zero-sum game. It’s not like that,” he said, adding that “there are other allies and partners out there [to help Taiwan]. It’s not just the United States.”
Milley in his speech also said that the US military needs to modernize to compete with China.
“I think the United States military needs to accelerate our modernization,” he said. “And it’s not so much just the actual modernization, but it’s the acceptance of the idea that future war, the fundamental character of war, is actually changing in really significant, radical ways.”
“If we, the military, don’t adapt ourselves, our doctrine or tactics or techniques, our leader development, our training and talent management, but also the weapon systems — if we don’t do that, then we won’t have a military that’s capable of operating in that future operating environment,” he said.
“So our task ... [is] to maintain our current decisive advantage, our lethality and readiness, our competence, by optimizing these technologies for the conduct of war, and we do this not to conduct war, but to deter great-power war,” he said.
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